Casual Stroll to Mordor

“Many folk used to dwell away north, a hundred miles or more from here, at the far end of the Greenway: on the North Downs or by Lake Evendim.”

The Ettenmoors is a tricky place to write about. The Moors, as we typically call them, are better known in LOTRO than they are in any other Tolkien adaptation.

There was much fanfare when it was announced that we players would be joining the Fellowship (or its remnants) in Rohan. The endless, rolling plains of the realm of the Horse-lords is perhaps second, depending on who you talk to, to the Shire for most idealized and beloved landscapes in Middle-earth.

The first missive for the new Beneath Your Feet takes us to southern Mirkwood and the stronghold of Dol Guldur.

I never was one to play the “caster” or “magic using” type of class, which I believed that the lore-master was within the frame work of Lord of the Rings Online. I didn’t care too much for the light armor. Yet, the lore-master I was playing with that day was an Elf, which I wanted to be, but that isn’t what sold me on the class.

To celebrate the announcement of the Riders of Rohan expansion, I have been reading up on the lore of Rohan and its peoples.

The Battles at the Fords of the Isen are regarded as the opening conflict of the War of the Ring proper, though they were by no means the first clash among the major combatants.

The passage I have chosen to look at next is the creation myth for Middle-Earth.

Which race is the eldest? Elves love nothing more than to glory in the title of the Elder Race, Firstborn, etc. They lord it over the other races like a spoiled Kindergartener, and their self declarations hold as much authority.

For this article, I wanted to call attention to an important event which was totally removed from the movies, but should be quite important in an upcoming release for LOTRO.

This was one of the great battles of the First Age, when Turgon rescinded the leaguer of Gondolin and came forth to war as ally with the rest of the Noldor, Edain, and Dwarves.

I decided I would like to see a poster with all the major kingdoms and battles of Middle-Earth laid out on a timeline.

No more serious topic of discussion can be found in all of Tolkiendom than Balrog wings. After listening to many of the Tolkien Professor’s podcasts, and reading others thoughts, I was inspired to wade into this inflammatory topic with my own ruminations.

I thought it would be fun to sort some of the characters from the books into LOTRO Classes.

I fear that the powers of this world have promulgated a great deceit, the greatest cover-up in the history of Middle-Earth. At the center of the vast network of hoaxes are the members of the White Council: Elrond, Mithrandir, and Celeborn.